Renato !
In the course of a long and productive literary career, Eugene Mirabelli has written three sequential novels about the poignant and comical misadventures of an artist, Renato Stillamare, which have now been revised and assembled into a single majestic work.
Renato! is remarkable equally for the dynamic fusion of its parts—a modernistic marriage of narrative forms—and for a story set amidst the confusions of modern life and richly imbued with love, philosophy, hilarity, food, sex, religion, complicated familial attachments, and a dash of magical realism. Renato's somewhat outlandish first-person narrative runs from an unlikely origin story to rebellious maturity and finally to searing intimations of mortality. His personality is creative, noble, jealous, generous, foolish, compassionate, witty, profound, selfish, and wonderfully charismatic. His language is colloquial and at times profane; his painterly eye for detail is precise and revealing; his metaphors apt and often hilarious; his heart vulnerable, and his suffering all too real. Renato! is a testament to struggle, failure and, despite all, a passionate embrace of life and belief in love. As the novelist and critic Douglas Glover remarks in his introduction to Renato!, it is as though Mirabelli has reverse-engineered the novel as that wonderfully extravagant and particularly Italian form—opera.
The life and times of the painter Renato Stillamare have become “a blazing magnum opus”--Publishers Weekly
Details
In the course of a long and productive literary career, Eugene Mirabelli has written three sequential novels about the poignant and comical misadventures of an artist, Renato Stillamare, which have now been revised and assembled into a single majestic work.
Renato! is remarkable equally for the dynamic fusion of its parts—a modernistic marriage of narrative forms—and for a story set amidst the confusions of modern life and richly imbued with love, philosophy, hilarity, food, sex, religion, complicated familial attachments, and a dash of magical realism. Renato's somewhat outlandish first-person narrative runs from an unlikely origin story to rebellious maturity and finally to searing intimations of mortality. His personality is creative, noble, jealous, generous, foolish, compassionate, witty, profound, selfish, and wonderfully charismatic. His language is colloquial and at times profane; his painterly eye for detail is precise and revealing; his metaphors apt and often hilarious; his heart vulnerable, and his suffering all too real. Renato! is a testament to struggle, failure and, despite all, a passionate embrace of life and belief in love. As the novelist and critic Douglas Glover remarks in his introduction to Renato!, it is as though Mirabelli has reverse-engineered the novel as that wonderfully extravagant and particularly Italian form—opera.
"[T]his novel is a portrait of the universal human spirit. Every phase of Renato's life—his youth, his career, his loves, his losses, and, most of all, his experiences are common to everyone. Mirabelli's Renato is a fascinating, relatable, and sympathetic character. Once you meet Renato, he will be hard to forget."—Kathy Fortin, Voices in Italian Americana
The life and times of the painter Renato Stillamare have become “a blazing magnum opus”--Publishers Weekly
"Rivaling grand opera for passion and plot, Renato! is sure to delight readers who appreciate captivating storytelling."--Booklist, American Library Assn.
“Mirabelli . . .is a master of montage, sudden narrative breaks, interwoven plots and themes.…This truly is a wise and comforting book, funny and sad, wonderfully intelligent…”—from the introduction by Douglas Glover
“A bittersweet, beautiful story that…merits wide attention…[and] speaks wisely to life’s truths.”--Kirkus Reviews